Hi Peter,

In today's meeting, Board resolved not to carry sublicensing authority over to any successor entity, as per your recommendation. Existing licences are unaffected. We made no determination about the legal basis of the programme.

Given this, I don't think chasing documentation from Cisco legal is worth it. That's my own read rather than a Board decision, but if we're not carrying the programme forward then the 2008 paperwork matters much less.

We still intend to approach Cisco to ask them to recognise a successor entity in respect of the XSF's own use of the mark (this kept separate from the sublicensing question). Do you see a problem with that?

Minutes: https://wiki.xmpp.org/web/Board-Meeting-2026-09-10#Minutes

Kind regards,

Guus

On Thu, Sep 10, 2026 at 4:40 PM Peter Saint-Andre <stpeter@stpeter.im> wrote:
Thanks, Guus.

It is possible that we could seek documentation from Cisco legal on these matters (18 years after the acquisition), but whether that is worth everyone's time depends, I think, on whether the community wishes to continue the program if we move the domicile from the U.S. to Europe.

Peter

On Thu, Sep 10, 2026, at 8:19 AM, Guus der Kinderen wrote:
Hi Peter,

Thanks, this helps enormously. It is new to me - or at least I didn't consciously register it before.

I think what happened is that the discussion got stuck on "what documentation do we have", and somewhere in there the question of whether the programme exists got treated as settled. However, not everyone was settling it in the same way.

Those of us without the twenty-year history had only the paperwork to go on. The paperwork alone doesn't tell the whole story. Knowing that the programme's continuation was confirmed as part of the acquisition (and that you worked with Cisco's lawyers both then and afterwards), changes things considerably.

Thanks again for sharing this.

Kind regards,

On Thu, Sep 10, 2026 at 3:49 PM Peter Saint-Andre <stpeter@stpeter.im> wrote:

Unfortunately I have a conflict and cannot participate in the Board meeting today.

HOWEVER, I have to say that doubts about the very existence of the trademark sublicensing program are unfounded. When Cisco acquired JINC on Halloween of 2008, the existence and continuation of the program was confirmed as part of the acquisition process, and I worked with Cisco lawyers at that time and afterward regarding the operation of the program. We might not have complete documentation of every detail, but to doubt that the program exists is ridiculous.

Peter

On Thu, Sep 10, 2026, at 3:24 AM, Guus der Kinderen wrote:
Dear Board members,

This email announces the agenda for our next Board meeting, scheduled for Thursday, 10 September 2026, from 16:00 to 16:30 UTC. The meeting will take place in the XSF chatroom at xmpp:xsf@muc.xmpp.org?join.

I'm aware that the agenda below uses plenty of markup, which may affect rendering. The same agenda is available on the XSF wiki, which may be helpful in case your mail client does not render this email as intended: https://wiki.xmpp.org/web/Board-Meeting-2026-09-10#Agenda 

Please review the relevant materials ahead of the meeting so that we can use our time efficiently.

Kind regards,

  Guus

1. Welcome
Opening of the meeting. Roll call and confirmation of quorum.
2. Formalize Agenda
Recommendation: A1 as the substantive item, with A2 and A3 as short items. Section C assignments to be confirmed by name before close.
Items not selected are deferred, not dropped.

Section A - recommended for today

A1. Jabber Trademark: separate the questions (20 min - decision)
The 27 August discussion did not conclude. It repeatedly collapsed three distinct questions into one. Ralph set them out as:
  1. Does the sublicensing programme, in its current form, exist?
  2. If so, does the XSF want to continue it?
  3. What happens to it if the XSF changes domicile, or winds down?
Ralph also noted (and dwd agreed) that these need not be approached together. A request that Cisco recognise a successor entity concerns the XSF's own use of the Mark, which Ralph noted is not in question today, and need not mention the sublicensing programme at all. The two approaches can be made separately, or one without the other.

Positions stated on 27 August
  • Mickaël: wind the programme down; it is not wise to take new applicants.
  • Ralph: the programme does exist - it continued well beyond the trial with JINC's awareness, and it is the trademark holder's duty to know. Separately, contacting Cisco about successor recognition is low-risk and need not raise the programme.
  • Guus: reluctant to act as though a fully functional programme exists given the documentation gap; asking Cisco and letting their answer drive the decision is acceptable.
  • From the floor, dwd: without contacting Cisco the programme probably has to be shuttered; with contact, either answer gives clarity.
Decisions sought
  1. Whether to decouple the successor-entity request from the sublicensing question, per Ralph and dwd.
  2. On question 2 above - does the XSF want to continue the programme at all? Mickaël has proposed it should not. This is answerable today and does not depend on legal advice.
  3. Whether new applications are issued while the programme's status is disputed. Ge0rG has indicated he intends to apply, for a non-commercial hosting collective, and asked for a grace period before Cisco is contacted. Guus questioned whether the XSF should issue anything under a programme in this state.
  4. Whether to suspend or annotate the public sublicensing pages pending the above.
Not for decision today
  • Whether an oral or implied agreement can extend or override the written License Agreement. This was argued at length on 27 August without resolution and none of the Board are lawyers. See A2.

Status of actions from 27 August
  • Mickaël agreed to contact Joe Hildebrand via LinkedIn, with Ralph copied, on the history of the arrangement - including whether the programme came up at the time of the JSF-to-XSF name change. Status?
A2. Legal questions: assemble the list (10 min - decision)
No agreement was reached on 27 August about obtaining legal advice. Guus observed that the legal arguments in the meeting were not helping and that none of those present are lawyers; Ralph did not consider the discussion disruptive in itself. From the floor, it was suggested a trademark lawyer would be needed before contacting Cisco. Ralph confirmed the XSF has members who are lawyers but does not currently retain any.

Before the Board can decide whether to seek counsel, it needs to know what it would ask. No such list exists. This item is about producing one; the decision on counsel follows.

Known questions, as a starting point
  • Does the sublicensing authority survive the absence of documentation extending the twelve-month trial?
  • Can continued execution with the trademark holder's awareness affect the written terms?
  • What is the status of existing sublicense holders if the programme is discontinued?
  • Can the arrangement, or the XSF's obligations under it, transfer to a successor entity?
  • If the programme is discontinued, does anything in the existing agreements prevent the XSF, or a successor entity, from seeking a new sublicensing arrangement later?
  • Does the XSF's own license to use the Mark survive the JSF-to-XSF name change and the Cisco acquisition, and on what terms?
  • Does contacting Cisco itself change the legal position, as was suggested from the floor?
Decisions sought
  1. Who drafts the consolidated list, and by when.
  2. Whether EU-transition questions are bundled with the trademark ones or kept separate.
  3. Whether to ask Matija Šuklje to help frame the questions. He offered assistance on standards@ in May and was explicit he cannot provide Legal Advice - which makes scoping an appropriate use of the offer. See also C2.
A3. EU Legal Structure: self-assessments have stalled (5 min - decision)
Not reached on 27 August. The Board agreed on 18 June that authors would self-assess "before a date to be communicated". The call went out on 4 June; no date was ever communicated, and no self-assessment has been posted to members@ in the three months since.
Decisions sought
  1. A firm deadline.
  2. Whether to contact the proposal authors directly rather than via the list.
  3. What happens to proposals whose authors do not respond - Board-prepared assessment, or drop from consideration.

Section B - candidate items, deferred unless promoted

B1. Volunteer capacity (15 min - discussion)
Deferred from 2026-08-27. Guus wrote on standards@ in July that the volunteering force is one of the XSF's most valuable assets, that the XSF has not historically done well at preventing burnout among those volunteers, and that it needs to do better. Two signals from that discussion bear on this directly:
  • Goffi described himself as "already at the edge of burn-out" and declined additional work on that basis.
  • Goffi reported, and Kev independently described, that the Editor has indicated he could not continue in the role if the volume of low-quality submissions rises. Neither account is a first-hand statement, and neither was contested on the list.
The XSF's volunteer force is not within the Council's remit. This item exists because no other body owns it.
For discussion
  1. What concrete support the Editor and Council need, and whether the Board can supply or fund it.
  2. Whether the Editor function has sufficient redundancy.
  3. Whether the Board should adopt any ongoing practice for noticing volunteer load before it becomes attrition.
B2. IPR policy: warranty, copyright, and AI-assisted contributions (20 min - decision)
Deferred from 2026-08-27. Goffi has asked three times whether this belongs with the Board - twice in May, and again in July, when he asked whether the discussion should continue on standards@ or whether the Board should take it up and ask a team to work on an XSF statement on AI use. That question remains unanswered.
Guus, as a Board member, twice replied that the matter was not yet ready, and set out what would change that: a concrete proposal with prior art behind it. The prior-art survey is now complete. Whether a concrete proposal exists is for the Board to judge.

The narrow question
Marvin argued on standards@ that AI-generated content cannot comply with the IPR policy as written: §3.1 requires the author to assign ownership they may not hold, and §4 requires a copyright notice that may be invalid. Dave argued the warranty model already indemnifies the XSF, since the author asserts they can assign and the XSF accepts in good faith.

Alternatives raised
  • Retain the current policy unchanged.
  • Adopt submitter wording along the lines Dave proposed: an assertion and warranty that, to the extent copyright exists in the contribution, the submitter has permission from all rights holders to assign it, and does so.
  • Adopt a matching qualification in Appendix C. Dave himself was unsure this is necessary, on the basis that publishing a submission likely suffices.
  • Disclaim copyright in XEPs entirely and require submissions to do the same. Reported by Dave as a position Peter has argued previously; not stated by Peter in this thread.
Decisions sought
  1. Whether the current IPR policy is adequate as written, or is to be opened.
  2. If opened, which direction, and who drafts.
  3. Whether any XSF-wide statement is commissioned beyond Council's XEP-0143 work, and a reply to Goffi either way.
Scope note: author-facing guidance belongs in XEP-0143 and is Council's. PR #1552 is with Council, where revised wording was proposed at the most recent Council meeting. The Board should not duplicate that work.

Section C - assignments

Listed on 2026-08-27 but not confirmed. To be read out and owners named before close.

C1. Role address audit.
trademark@xmpp.org has been reported bouncing since June; no sublicense application can be filed while it is broken. The Board agreed on 18 June that this should be addressed; it appears not to have been. The CoC also publishes no contact address for the Board or conduct team. Confirm every XSF role address is monitored and published. Owner: TBD
C2. Counsel enquiry.
Peter offered in July to raise the question of counsel on the open-source foundations list.
Confirm status. Feeds A2. Owner: TBD
C3. Historical enquiry: Joe Hildebrand.
Agreed 2026-08-27. Ralph to be copied. Owner: Mickaël

Standing items

3. Any Other Business (AOB) (3 min)
4. Date of next meeting (2 min)
Proposed: Thursday, 24 September 2026, at the usual time, resuming the fortnightly cadence.
5. Close